PIU report and human rights: e-commerce Bill

[Alan Burkitt-Gray]

	-----Original Message-----
	Mark Carroll wrote: 
	As far as I know, there doesn't have to be any transfer of money for
a
	contract to exist.


I thought the essence of a contract was that there was a two-way exchange.
Something for something. Hence the existence of peppercorn rents - you have
to pay something, even 1p a year, to rent, hire or buy goods or services
otherwise there is no contract and therefore no conditions can be imposed.
If I were a Virgin.net user I'd be giving Virgin nothing (BT's paying them
something out of what it earns from my phone bill, but that's a BT-Virgin
contract). So Virgin couldn't impose conditions. 
Alan

-
ALAN BURKITT-GRAY, Editor, Government Computing
The independent magazine about information age public service,
for the people who are going to make it happen
NEXT ISSUE: July-August 1999, due early July 
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